Foundation Capital

Silicon Valley Bank just released its latest edition of the Future of Fintech report, with a focus on how generative AI is creating huge opportunities for fintechs. Partner Nico Stainfeld is no stranger to AI’s impact on fintech. As featured in the report, he contributes the idea that technology isn’t a moat—defensibility has to come in more traditional ways like SWOT analysis, the ground game of selling, and sales cycles. Link to the report in the comments:

Late 2022: tech stocks had plunged 50%, layoffs were widespread, and the industry seemed lost. Then Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT launched, sparking widespread AI fervor. For Darius Lam this wasn't just another market cycle. "The opportunity isn't about turning $4B companies into $20B ones," he realized. "It's about building the next $100B companies." In our latest "AI in the Real World" episode, Darius unpacks this insight and shares his journey from leading computer vision at Cerebras to founding NEX, where he and his team are developing SOTA multimodal foundation models. He breaks down: * Why NEX is building their own models from scratch * The secret sauce behind NEX's approach to model development * Why vertical integration matters for AI products * Hard-won lessons every AI founder should know Our full conversation here: https://lnkd.in/gn3YzUKE

Congratulations to portfolio company Tennr on their $37 million Series B round 🎉 General Partner Joanne Chen was the lead investor in Tennr's Seed round just 17 months ago, and Foundation Capital is excited to double down. We’re also thrilled to welcome new investor Alex Kayyal and the Lightspeed team. Foundation Capital invests in exceptional early-stage founders solving tricky technical problems, and Trey Holterman, Diego Baugh, and Tyler Johnson are quintessential examples of this. We look forward to continuing our work with them during this next phase of growth.

The $10 billion lesson in startup focus 👇

Multimodal AI agents bring new depth and nuance to AI interactions. By processing images, audio, and text simultaneously, these agents can discern emotions from tone, gestures, and facial expressions and respond more empathetically and accurately to prompts As a result, they can respond to the (almost) real world and the randomness of daily life. At Stanford, Joon's "Smallville" experiment with 25 ChatGPT-powered AI agents demonstrated their ability to form relationships, share information, and adapt to unexpected events—mirroring human behavior. For B2B founders multimodal AI opens doors to: → Enhanced customer service automation → More intuitive product interfaces → Realistic simulations for testing business strategies The implications stretch far beyond tech—policymaking, urban planning, and social science research. I'm watching this space closely. Founders working on multimodal AI applications, especially in B2B contexts, please reach out. Foundation Capital

Congrats to Trey, Diego, Tyler, and the entire Tennr team on raising a $37 million Series B!  💥🎉  We’re excited to continue doubling down and are thrilled to welcome our new investor Alex Kayyal and the Lightspeed team. Foundation Capital led Tennr’s seed round just 17 months ago. It’s been a privilege watching the Tennr team’s incredible execution and growth trajectory. If you’re looking to jump on a 🚀, we are hiring! https://lnkd.in/g7cigNFY

In 2013 I bet on a founder who saw opportunity where others saw impossibility. That bet became Tubi—now the 4th largest streaming service in the US. The streaming wars were raging. Large players burned cash for premium content. Subscription models dominated. Then Farhad Massoudi flipped the script with a contrarian belief: Ad-supported, free streaming could succeed without premium content. Farhad started Tubi as a small ad network for video games. No massive funding. No media conglomerate backing. Just a smart, thrifty, and persistent founder with the audacity to challenge industry dogma. What sets Farhad apart is his courage to test assumptions. Resource constraints didn't limit his vision—they fueled his creativity. His move defied conventional wisdom, but it worked. Today, Tubi is the largest AVOD platform in the country. Farhad’s story is made-for-Tubi movie. This journey fundamentally altered my perspective on how change happens in the world. I once believed only top-down forces could transform industries. Now I see how individuals armed with the right strategy can create bottom-up revolutions, even when resource-constrained. Foundation Capital

Observability is broken. Companies drown in tools and data, yet SREs waste 30% of their time on alert triage. Critical incident MTTR remains stuck at 4-5 hours despite ballooning budgets. Early solutions solved storage. Later ones tackled volume and costs. Neither cracked the insight problem. LLMs and AI promise to revolutionize root cause analysis, potentially slashing MTTR and freeing engineers. Vendors who tie pricing to outcomes rather than data volume will lead this shift. 📃 General Partner Ashu Garg and Partner Jaya Gupta break down the $100B observability opportunity on the blog: https://lnkd.in/euTqHHHJ

Logistics is facing a pivotal moment. As the backbone of transporting, warehousing, and distributing goods, it’s surprising how deeply-rooted inefficiencies are costing us around $95 billion annually. With the rise of e-commerce and the demand for faster deliveries, these challenges are becoming impossible to ignore. What’s holding logistics back? A reliance on outdated systems, manual processes, and growing data complexity. But within these challenges lies a significant opportunity. AI-focused startups are stepping up to tackle these issues head-on. By leveraging LLMs and computer vision, they’re transforming logistics in four key areas: 1. Back-Office Automation: Streamlining administrative tasks for carriers and intermediaries. (A $22B market opportunity) 2. Route Optimization and Planning: Enhancing transportation efficiency and reducing wasted miles. (A $30B opportunity) 3. AI Dashcams: Improving driver safety with advanced monitoring systems. (A $13.6B opportunity) 4. Warehouse Robotics: Tackling labor shortages and boosting productivity through automation. (A $13B opportunity) Collectively, that’s a $79B opportunity to turn logistics from a traditionally resistant industry into one that’s agile and responsive to today’s needs. There’s real potential for AI to make a significant impact in logistics. If you’re working on innovative solutions in this space, especially those harnessing AI to streamline processes and boost efficiency, I’d be interested to hear more. https://lnkd.in/ggpj6jib

🙌 🎉 I’m thrilled to share that I’m joining Foundation Capital as an investment partner focusing on enterprise applied AI, working alongside Joanne Chen, and the enterprise team. Shoutout to Chris Lyon, our talent partner, for making this happen! The past two years of building Brewit (YC W23) with my best friends Mark (Kailing) Ding and Sam (Kaishan) Ding is a forever memorable journey for me - I can still vividly recall the moment we found out we got into Y Combinator. I’ve gained invaluable lessons in resilience, iteration, and adaptability from building, pivoting, and growing our company, navigating the highs and lows of startup life. While an exciting announcement is on the horizon for Brewit, I’m ready to embark on a new chapter in my career. After speaking with dozens of founders and aspiring entrepreneurs, I realized how much I enjoy hearing their visions, expanding my perspective, and sharing my ideas. This naturally led me to venture capital, where I can do this on a larger scale. Specifically, Foundation Capital has a 30-year history of supporting founders at their earliest stages: helping shape ideas into companies and guiding founders on their 0 to 1 journey…a journey I was on myself! The firm has also been investing in AI for over a decade, with early investments in Cerebras Systems, Cohesity, Netflix, Turing, Jasper, etc. This aligns with my areas of interest. I believe the next generation of AI-native applications will fundamentally reshape the entire enterprise stacks across verticals. One area I’m currently focusing on is the impact of AI in the logistic sector - please check out the article in the comment below to learn more. A founder’s journey can be an exhausting rollercoaster ride. I have been in your shoes and I want to stand alongside you. If you’re a founder looking to raise your pre-seed or seed round, or if you’re just brainstorming ideas to work on, please ping me at [email protected]